The master plan: further reactions

Posted on 13.12.2020 by Regisseur

The two locations of Geisel

The new-look Remsen/Vail at the north end of campus is an improvement and looks like the work of Leers Weinzapfel Architects, the designers of the reskinned Dana Library/Anonymous Hall adjacent (page 44 of the plan).

Remsen-Vail
If the Geisel School of Medicine were to relocate to new facilities, this opportunity for adaptive reuse can accommodate up to 550 undergraduate student beds and/or academic space, and could include new facade materials, enlarged windows, and a welcoming new entrance.

One might have no particular objection to the architecture but still recoil at the idea of placing undergrad beds or academic space this far away from the center. Undergraduate uses do not belong this far north. As a ten-year swing space allowing the rehabilitation of other dorms, perhaps, but it is just too far away.

The larger point here is that Geisel seems uncertain about its location. That the school is split between its traditional home here at the north end of campus (including its fancy admissions office in a renovated 19th century hospital ward) and its technical and efficient home alongside the suburban hospital south of town has always seemed strange. Students begin their education in Hanover and conclude it at the hospital in Lebanon.

Whether this split the result of intention or of nothing more than the lack of a replacement for Remsen/Vail at the DHMC campus, the plan suggests that Geisel could leave Hanover and make its DHMC site a true and complete med school campus. If that happens, it would be hard to argue that the vacated Geisel buildings in Hanover should not be used by Dartmouth (although a similar argument was successful in the past, when most of the hospital complex was demolished; VSBA had suggested that the Modernist main tower, at least, be renovated as a dormitory).

The proposals for a med school campus at the south end of the DHMC complex are so sensible as to raise the question of why they have not been built or at least planned already. A main building, some housing, and a modest green space for a medical school? Perhaps it is a measure of the committed suburbanity of the hospital complex that such a thing has not been accomplished thus far. The Geisel campus can grow as a grid of independent buildings flanking outdoor spaces rather than as the nucleus of a radiant sunburst of parking lots.

The Grand Limited-Access Road

New limited-access roadway for shuttles, emergency vehicles, and bicycles connecting Sachem Village and DHMC.

The transit link across the woods between Sachem Village and DHMC stands out as completely obvious and necessary, even to someone who knows the area only from maps.

Is the access limitation placed on the road because it goes through the residential neighborhood of Sachem Village? If there were some way to make it a proper road, it could take a lot of pressure off downtown Hanover. Yes, limited-access streets are pleasant and necessary — perhaps South Main Street above Lebanon Street? — but preventing this road from handling traffic seems cruel to Hanover.

The future has already arrived in the West End

Not much is novel here because there are two major buildings currently under construction. The rest of the area, while populated with buildings from the Sixties and Seventies, is still something of a blank slate. West End Green might be a bit vague (trees will do that) but it is an improvement.

Speaking of the Tuck School, it always seems to be threatening to leave:

In the future, the Tuck complex could be renovated and expanded to advance its competitive edge. Or, if relocated to new facilities, Woodbury and Chase, originally built as student housing, as well as Tuck Hall could be repurposed for undergraduate
housing, providing up to 230 beds.

Putting undergrad beds in the Tuck complex would be a neat trick, but moving Tuck out to some shiny, flimsy complex at an isolated forest site in Lebanon would be a blow to Dartmouth.

Does the college need to give a territorial guarantee to keep Tuck on campus, perhaps a promise of a portion of the future sites around West End Green and an access corridor or exclave on West Wheelock Street, a B-School Kaliningrad?

Minor points

What is the unlabeled property to the northwest on the map on page 5? It is the college-owned woods in Corinth, VT (see page 60).
The Covid-19 information in the master plan makes for a timely preface but already seems a bit dated in this 30-year plan.
“Gibson” is spelled “Givson” on an image on page 36.
“Hanover Campus” is inconsistently capitalized. The version with a lowercase “c” seems preferable.
Calling it “the College Park BEMA” is odd. There is no other Bema to confuse it with, so “the Bema” or “the Bema in College Park” would suffice. And “BEMA” does not need to be in all capital letters — the word “BEMA” in caps is a backronym (a back-formed acronym) for Big Empty Meeting Area, and as such makes a cute campus legend, but the Greek-derived word after which this space is named is “Bema.”
Is it strange to call it “Mount Moosilauke Ravine Lodge”? The mountain is Mt. Moosilauke and the lodge seems like it should be called the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge.
The map on page 9 showing new nodes hopping around campus is neat and insightful, but it could make its point even more strongly if it showed Thayer School’s time in Bissell Gym (on the Hop plaza, basically) from 1912 to 1939. And if the map substituted Geisel for MHMH, it could show three nodes instead of two: first the Medical School (on the Burke Lab site, from 1812 to the 1950s[?]), then MHMH, then the hospital complex in Lebanon.

The master plan: initial impressions

Posted on 05.12.2020 by Regisseur

See the latest version of Planning for Possibilities on the Presentations and Outcomes page. So far, the October 2020 draft plan and a slide deck have been posted.

The new master plan is very impressive.

The scope of the plan is impressive. It is the first master plan for the college to at least account for all college properties (the map on page 5 is zoomed out so far that it shows part of Canada) and the first plan to frame the campus in a regional context. Especially where transit is concerned, the Organic Farm and DHMC really do need to appear on the same map.

The document is more readable and less technical than its predecessors. Its creators made the interesting decision to use oblique aerial views exclusively — meaning that none of the proposals for development appear as flat “plans.”

The potential projects on campus look excellent. Placing a building on the lawn of Shabazz Hall makes so much sense. The natural site for a new physical sciences building beyond Burke of course requires yet another demolition of Dragon. The proposals for Bartlett and Wheeler additions are fantastic, with the latter being particularly bold. The natural row behind Mass Row could incorporate an abutment of, or at least an entry plaza for, the Cemetery Bridge at its south end. The Bema pavilion makes sense (maybe the place will see more use if it has a proper covered stage?), though erecting a frame building would be unusual in that space.

One might wish the planners had considered building on the vacant lots in front of Sanborn and south of Blunt as well. And why not show a building site on Berry Row between Kemeny and Moore? It has always been planned that way, even going back to VSBA days after the purchase of the hospital property. Oh well. (The plan also does not clearly note the anticipated Ledyard Canoe Club replacement, but that is not important.)

Here’s hoping that the college preserves the old frame buildings that are now standing on the various development sites. There are two buildings on the site behind Mass Row, two on the Choate Road corner, two in front of Thompson, and two on College Street next to Sudikoff. There is also a certain amount of appeal to the idea of saving Sudikoff itself, the village-like assemblage of brick house-forms, and of saving Raven, but neither building is of a scale to stand up to Moore Hall next door. Clearing the Sudikoff corner is the breaking of eggs to make an omelet in this plan.

The big question: Hilton Field (the western portion of the golf course)

The plan proposes that the oldest portion of the shuttered golf course be turned into an arboretum. This is a clever choice, especially given the neighborhood and its sensitivities. An arboretum really is typologically and functionally similar to a golf course or, for that matter, a city park or a cemetery. In the end, this minor change in use might amount to nothing more than ceding the land to nature as at the adjacent (and intermingled!) Pine Park. And yet an arboretum will not take Hilton Field off the table for some distant future development if it is needed. Still, the college would probably be remiss not to put a half-dozen houses for sale to faculty along Hilton Field Road at the same time it lays out the arboretum. What an opportunity!

East and North of the Green

The Thel sculpture is not mentioned, but it might be endangered:

Fairchild Field
A new shared surface for cars, pedestrians, and bikes, in lieu of a vehicular access road, creates better pedestrian connections between the Physical Sciences Complex and the Historic Core.

Anything that replaces the access road would be an improvement.

The plan devotes a great deal of attention to Fairchild Tower. It proposes a new interior stair and a bridge (to Wilder, presumably). Fairchild has always seemed a chilly, hollow signpost, but the illustrations in the plan remind us of how stylish it is.

Moving south across Wheelock Street, the big Vox Lane redevelopment image shows McKenzie and the Store House as not only preserved but expanded vertically into a “wellness” building — fantastic. That will be one of the most architecturally interesting buildings on campus. (This proposal was not included in an August presentation image and thus seems to be a recent inspiration.)

South of the Store House is shown a parking garage on the FO&M corner. Fine, but one hopes that it will have retail uses on the ground level. It could make for a neat visitor entry to campus: you drive to town, park in the garage, follow the signs to the back door of Wilson Hall — the new admissions office, in this plan — and when you embark on your campus tour and pass through Wilson’s great arch you see the Green laid out before you.

It is good to see the athletics promenade alongside Leverone (page 52). And Piazza Nervi is on the map, described this way:

Park St Gateway
A gracious gateway to athletics and the campus visually connects the Leverone Fieldhouse and Thompson Arena, both historic modernist structures designed by Pier Luigi Nervi.

That “gateway” project would move the two houses currently blocking the view of Thompson Arena and, interestingly, would add a roadway in front of Thompson. Clever: lining a lawn with streets sets it off as a public space, a public green.

North Campus

The architects’ image of a Maynard Street Green on page 45 looks like a Currier and Ives print.

The plan mentions the possibility of moving all existing uses out of the Rope Ferry Road buildings and turning the buildings into graduate dorms. Interesting! But wait, do they mean vacating Dick’s House too? They do, apparently — which would be too bad. Would there be any infirmary on campus, or have student health services become a collection of vending machines? Presumably the infirmary would go to the “wellness” building at McKenzie. If that is what it takes to save McKenzie, then so be it.

And beyond: Land banks on Lyme Road

The new buildings north of the Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center are a great start, and there could be many more here. Dewey Lot has so much space, as stated in the report, and so much potential. The depression here creates a fantastic opportunity for an extensive below-grade parking deck. As stated on this site in the past, however, the functions placed here should not be college-related. This is no more a part of the campus than is the CVS (Grand Union) building, and college ownership of this site does not change that fact.

Moving up along Lyme Road outside of town: The two alternative land bank locations labeled “Site 1” will inevitably be suburban and oriented to Lyme Road, notwithstanding the plan’s idealism about self-driving cars. They really will have parking lots, because they will become office parks and convenience stores. As far as the choice between near and far, the farther site, next to the fire station, seems preferable. There is less chance that it will contain anything that undergraduates would need to visit.

More on the two locations of Geisel, the Grand Limited-Access Road, and the rest of the plan in a future post.

The campus master plan!

Posted on 10.11.2020 by Regisseur

A draft of the strategic master plan, Planning for Possibilities (PDF), was released last month without fanfare:

The document contains a lot to talk about. Commentary here will be forthcoming, but for now the key word is Arboretum. More information from the Strategic Planning Team is available on the Presentations page, and Director of Campus Planning Joanna Whitcomb will be giving an on-line presentation on November 11 at 7pm (register).

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[Update 11.11.2020: The plan was presented to the Trustees’ Master Planning & Facilities Subcommittee in August (cached page), and a short version of that presentation is available in PDF. That document shows some interesting Sasaki renderings of a Choates addition and the Crosby Street dorm that did not make it into the current plan. The current draft plan, along with an audio slide deck from May, were released on the Presentations page ahead of the November Trustees’ meeting, and the Board approved the master plan last week (Dartmouth News).]

The College Street sidewalk and other topics

Posted on 24.10.2020 by Regisseur

The college is replacing some of the glass curtain walls on the Black Family Visual Arts Center, including the large etched glass window that clad the upper levels of the building over the west (campus) entrance (former link). The replacement glass here and over the south entrance will be less distracting and provide better management of daylight. The etched design over the west entrance, however lovely up close, did always look from a distance like creeping frost or condensation inside a multipane window whose seal had failed.
Very interesting: the college is putting a lot of effort into installing a sidewalk along College Street north of the site of the old DG House (see North College Street Sidewalk weekly update). Sidewalks are good, and this one must have been deemed necessary, but there was something romantic about the way College Park spilled wildly toward the shoulder of the road, untamed. Just look at this barely-trammeled wilderness, as seen in Google Street View during July 2019:

At any rate, the project involves what appears to be a hand-laid stone retaining wall intended as a counterpart to the existing wall to the south. (Does that existing wall incorporate foundation stones from the Victorian DG House?)
Dartmouth News has a video on the wooden sculpture by Ursula von Rydingsvard called Wide Babelki Bowl that now stands northwest of Rollins Chapel. (It is not really a southern counterpart to Thel; that honor was held by Telemark Shortline, which has been removed.) As Jessica Hong notes in the video, the sculpture has a definite kinship with the cyclopean masonry of Rollins; it is also reminiscent of the multi-stone sculptures of Angkor Wat.
The college is going ahead with the DOC House renovation (project page) with funding from the Class of 1969. Compare the project page image with the image at The Call to Lead to see the exterior changes on the Occom Pond facade.
It is not clear if there is an earlier public mention than this April 20 article, but the trim Sports Pavilion by Burnham Field that was built in 2007 and expanded a decade later has finally been given a name: Reilly Pavilion.
Housing developer Michaels Student Living will build an $84 million graduate student housing complex on Mt. Support Road, near the hospital, in coordination with the college (see renderings in Dartmouth News release, site plan in The Dartmouth). The designer is JSA Design of Portsmouth (Boston Real Estate Times).
The Valley News reports that plans are afoot to save the Hanover Country Club as a nine-hole course. The northern two-thirds of the course, comprising holes seven through 15, would be used in the new course; the southern portion of the course, lying south of the bulk of Pine Park and including the clubhouse area and the bridge over Girl Brook, would be made available for possible college expansion.
The Valley News has a story on a new cold chamber to be built at CRREL.
The steel frame of the Irving Institute has been topped off (Dartmouth News).
Most construction projects, including the construction of a large dormitory at the corner of Crosby and Wheelock Streets, are on hold, reported The Dartmouth in June.
Vermonter Putnam Blodgett ’53 died on March 20 (Valley News). He led the Moosilauke advisory committee, and his woods were the source of the unique forked white pine called Slingshot that supports the second-level bridge as well as the roof of the new Ravine Lodge (see photos in Jim Collins, Welcome to the Woods, DAM (Jan-Feb 2018)). I recall him at the 1995 Senior Symposium talking about the 1949 Tug of War: apparently the regular tug of war between the freshmen and the seniors had come to be seen as too large and dangerous, so the college placed a huge log between the opposing teams and attached multiple ropes to each side. Unfortunately, one of the ropes came loose and the log went flying in the opposite direction, toward the side with more pulling force. He said it was a miracle that no one was badly injured.
A ring bearing the letter “Z” featured prominently in a photo in the July 24 Washington Post story on the Pebble Mine project in Alaska. The photograph, by Alex Milan Tracy, showed the right hand of then-CEO Tom Collier, a U.Va. graduate. It’s a safe bet that the ring indicates membership in the Z Society (Wikipedia).

The end of the Hanover Country Club

Posted on 13.07.2020 by Regisseur

Along with ending five varsity sports, the college is closing the Hanover Country Club after nearly 125 years (see the announcement, which features another great Burakian aerial; see also the more detailed Hanlon message and the FAQ).

The golf course has been thought of as a land bank, a reserve for future development, for decades. A thorough college planning process can be expected before anything is built on the golf course.

Here are some suggestions for the plan:

The historic clubhouse, a 19th-century barn that was extensively remodeled by Professor Homer Eaton Keyes in 1916 and 1917 (a post here), should be preserved, ideally on its current site. It could be expanded and turned into a dwelling.
If the golf course is going to be developed, it should be developed thoroughly. Piecemeal scatterings of parking lots and isolated buildings will only draw suburban sprawl closer to Hanover (a concern expressed in a 2008 post here). The college should plan for an all-encompassing, long-term project that reserves important natural areas, establishes a street grid, and envisions buildings surrounding walkable public spaces.
More to the point, the development should be urban, not campus-like. The golf course lies outside the 10-minute walking radius of the college, and none of the buildings built there should contain spaces for instruction or student dining or living. These should be mixed-use commercial buildings like the ones found in Hanover’s first downtown, South Main Street. That is the idea presented in a 2012 post here that featured this image:
One exception to the no-campus guideline might be made for a new business school campus. Professional schools are located at the edges of the college, and the Tuck School has looked in the past at new sites along Lyme Road — which is too far away. A new Tuck campus beginning behind the Life Sciences Center and extending up into the golf course could be impressive. Thayer School might be happy to take over the old Tuck buildings.
While commercial buildings extend northward along Lyme Road, what kind of construction should the college promote on old Hilton Field, the area beyond the DOC House and the Clubhouse? To bring some income, provide needed housing for academic families, and appease the existing neighbors, the college might want to consider building houses here in the character of the historic neighborhood.

Crosby Street dorm off the table and other news

Posted on 05.04.2020 by Regisseur

The construction of the Indoor Practice Facility is nearly finished (see Big Green Alert). The school’s existing indoor practice facility, Leverone Field House, is being eyed as a site for a temporary hospital ward during the pandemic (Valley News). The west wing of Alumni Gym is also under consideration (Valley News).
This interesting tidbit appeared at the end of a board news release about new trustees:

The new board members were elected at the board’s spring meeting, held this year at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.

That seems like a first. The main news release (issued 1 March) has more information:

The board met at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., where they engaged in wide-ranging conversations with a diverse group of Stanford leaders including trustees, the former and current presidents, the provost, faculty in leadership positions, and representatives from departments across campus.

Not sure what to make of that, whether the learning opportunities were added to enhance the remote meeting or the meeting was held on the other side of the continent specifically in order to learn from Stanford.
Shattuck’s Revenge. At the Stanford meeting, the board approved a capital budget to fund projects that include “include renovation of Thornton Hall; planning and design of the Dartmouth Hall renovation; planning for proposed projects with private developers, including graduate housing and energy infrastructure; and” other projects. An interesting mention is made of $3 million “for planning and schematic design to explore the renovation and expansion of the Choates residence halls and the East Wheelock residential complex,” and funding for the future Hop renovation (still on the table!) and construction of teaching and research spaces is also noted. Not a word, however, on the Crosby Street dorm, which has been in planning for more than two years now. The project page for the design of the building was quietly removed from the Campus Services website during the last few weeks.
Irving Oil Co. has a rendering of the Irving Institute that differs in detail from the other images out there.
The college launched its capital campaign two years ago at Duggal Greenhouse in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Some photos from the event show considerable attention to detail: the use of Dartmouth Ruzicka lettering on the front facade; the model (15′ high?) of the bonfire, reimagined as a cocktail table; and the plaster/pasteboard renderings of Baker Tower and the main buildings of Tuck, Thayer, and Geisel (it’s white, but it’s a reasonably accurate rendition of the school’s ex-hospital building on Maynard Street).
Unrelated even to architecture: Although it is not unusual to hear of a company that has been operating since 1905, it is unusual to find one that has been making the same product since its beginning. How odd would it be if that product were a Morse code key? Take a look at Vibroplex and its Original Standard key. This is not quite an example of Ferry Porsche’s theory that the last car ever to be built will be a sports car (see Porsche’s site), because the FCC seems to effectively subsidize the use of Morse Code by prohibiting other modes of communication on certain radio frequencies, but it is close.

The fine line between clever and stupid

Posted on 07.02.2020 by Regisseur

A new site plan for the new dorm by the gym shows some refinement. The “bridge” element facing Crosby Street looks like the main entrance and responds to what planning analyses have identified as a major pedestrian route — the parking lot of the Heat Plant and Vox Lane. That’s nice, and one hopes the emphasis on this route helps cement the place of McKenzie and the Store House. But a good percentage of visitors to the new dorm will be arriving at the front of the building, at the Wheelock Street corner. No path is shown there. The construction timeline states “Commence Completion of Design phase – dependent on fundraising.”
Dana Biomedical Library, reconstructed as Dana Hall, has been renamed Anonymous Hall (Dartmouth News, Valley News). Unlike, say, Nameless Field at U.Va., the building does not lack a namesake; its namesake is simply undisclosed. What would be an unfunny move if committed by the administration might be saved by the fact that it was requested by the donor of the renovation. The Guiarini School (formerly the School of Graduate and Advanced Studies) is headquartered in Anonymous Hall. The building contains a DDS cafe called Ramekin Cafe.
More Irving renderings are available and a time-lapse video of construction is on line.
Dartmouth Ruzicka is being rolled out on the school’s websites, a December article explains.
Berry Mall has been torn up as part of the project to extend utilities to the west end of campus.
The maples on the south end of the Green are coming down. They did always seem a bit diminutive for the space; too round in comparison to the elms, or something.
An article in The Dartmouth explains the Fifty.
A well drilled on the Green is being tested for use in a geoexchange system like the one in use at Fahey-McLane.
A Valley News article on the projected library storage building.
Lawrence Biemiller has a bit on the Hood in a post on lessons that campus buildings have taught.
The college is in a partnership with a developer to build hundreds of apartment units for graduate and professional students near the hospital (Union Leader, Dartmouth News). It is hard to imagine how this could be anything but sprawl, but we will see.
BGA Daily has photos of the indoor practice facility. It looks like the renderings! One does hope that the building will connect to the brick gateway of Scully Fahey Field, although it looks doubtful. There is a curious kind of preservation going on with the brick pier of the Boss Tennis Center: BGA Daily photo.
An article on the new painting at the Skiway.
Rauner Library has an exhibit on slavery at Dartmouth.
The Reed Hall renovation designed by EYP is beginning (Dartmouth News).
Some U.Va. students are saving the old card catalog that was being removed from the main library building (Washington Post), and the U.Va. administration is starting a campaign of plaques, markers, and tours focused on the history of the institution.
If you enjoy Kate Wagner’s McMansion Hell, you’ll enjoy her “Duncing about Architecture” in the New Republic, about a proposed executive order titled “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again.” The group behind the proposed order, National Civic Art Society, counts the founder of Joe’s Dartblog among the members of its board of directors.

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Update 02.09.2020: NCAS item added.

Master plan coming soon

Posted on 20.12.2019 by Regisseur

The school has put out to bid a $50 million master plan project. The note says “Owner reviewing development options – Master Plan presentation planned for November 2019.”

The planners have been doing an impressive amount outreach, and there is a page listing various presentations. The Valley News has a November 8 article on the plan and its pending release, and the college news has coverage.

Most interesting is a Berry Main Hall exhibit (pdf) from November. It has very nice maps, including one showing some 30-year landscape opportunities with perspective views. Mass Row has an appropriate mirror dorm behind it, removing North Fairbanks, but maybe we can presume that South Fairbanks will be saved. The best one by far shows the Fairchild area, and it finally, finally, gets rid of the curving suburban driveway that destroys the quad between Wheeler and Steele. It even hints at the removal of Thel though one doubts that such a thing is likely or even necessary.

The plan is bold enough to mess with the town, showing South Main as a bike-friendly zone. The plan counts on the existence of the future cemetery bridge, which is good to see. It proposes a neat path network running east of Lyme Road, heading up to the Rugby Clubhouse and so on. The public release of the complete plan is scheduled for this winter.

Another report from the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, five years on

Posted on 01.10.2019 by Regisseur

During 2014 this site noted the progress that Oxford University was making in its redevelopment of a large former hospital site in the north end of town. At the time, the site of the Blavatnik School of Government was a hole in the ground:

The building has since been finished:

The site before:

After:

As noted, the circle-in-a-square building has a remarkable precedent at Oxford, the Radcliffe Camera (indeed, the Camera is such a symbol of the university that the Blavatnik School uses the Camera rather than its own building as the main image on its website).
The former St. Paul’s Church at left is the Freud Cafe and Bar. It appears much as it did in 1994, albeit more overgrown (see also the 2014 post on chapels as libraries).

Good news for the Hop expansion

Posted on 29.09.2019 by Regisseur

Seven years ago, the school officially announced “the selection of Boora Architects of Portland, Ore., to design a renovation and re-imagination of its Hopkins Center for the Arts.” Boora (now known as Bora) designed a stylish renovation and expansion.

In April of this year, the school announced the receipt of gifts sufficient to start planning. (The area that the school calls the Arts District is the one that this site in 1999 termed Hopland, obviously to no effect. The term “SoWhee” did not take off either.)

At the recent fall meeting of the trustees, according to a news release:

The board approved the allocation of $500,000 for a planning and feasibility study of renovations and potential expansion of the Hopkins Center for the Arts. The project — which recognizes the importance of the Hop and its artistic programming across the institution — would provide state-of-the-art performance and teaching spaces, improve and increase space and opportunities for rehearsal facilities, enhance accessibility, and address infrastructure and deferred maintenance.

There is no information on whether or how this upcoming project relates to the Bora design.

Historical archeology on campus and other topics

Posted on 22.09.2019 by Regisseur

News of an archeological dig on the site of Choate House, on Wentworth Street is thrilling; one hopes that such digs take place all over Hanover. Comparing the younger and larger state-supported University of Virginia is not really appropriate, but U.Va. seems constantly to be conducting digs, such as this one last summer.
In posts of August 17 and September 20, Big Green Alert Daily has photos of the Indoor Practice Facility going up.
The Valley News has an article on DHMC plans for a northward expansion (see also a later article without the plan). The expansion will go between the arms of the vee at the north entrance:
Campus Services has a nice interactive map of projects around campus.
The Rauner Blog has a post on Charles L. Hildreth of the class of 1901 and his campus cyanotypes.
The Valley News has an article about a class that studied the college’s connection to farming and put up an exhibit in the Berry Brickway Gallery.
The Engineering/CS construction update page has a photo of the extensively-rerouted Thayer Drive with this caption: “The new access road (to be named Thayer Drive) is almost complete. The drive begins at West Wheelock, turns left behind the residence halls to Channing Cox parking lot, and around to the back of MacLean Science Center.”
The Digital Library Program is running a great project called Image of the Week.
One of these things is not like the others. Once the OCD visual identity came out, we knew it was possible, but still we hoped it wouldn’t happen: the college has begun to replace the Dartmouth shield with the D-Tree. The school has started with the official letterhead of all places:

The D-Tree itself is nice, especially as an athletic logo, but it’s not a shield. And while the college might have good reason to take the midcentury Dartmouth shield out of its letterhead, it should commission a new shield for that purpose, as part of a new heraldic coat of arms. See, for example, this proposal from 1995.

Didn’t anyone find it notable that every one of the four Associated Schools now finally has a shield that depicts the Connecticut River in its base, just as the Dartmouth shield does?
The Valley News reports that the college submitted a new plan for the Thayer/CS building, this time showing its location accurately. After the building opens, wouldn’t it be neat if someone painted a line on the bridge that connects the building to MacLean to show where it was meant to stand? If the college is unable to muster the humility required, then some wry engineering student group ought to do it, in secret.
The PBS Newshour has a story on the Hood and its unconventional presentation of out-of-the-mainstream art. See also the good art-centered review in Apollo Magazine and the review in Dezeen. Architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien received honorary degrees at Commencement.
Rauner Library Blog has a post on a 1946 proposal for a Canadian flag with a profusion of stars, including the Big Dipper (compare the Alaska Flag, at Wikipedia).
A Valley News article from June describes a tour offered by the Lebanon Heritage Commission.

Replacing the River stair, the one made of earth and wood, and other topics

Posted on 02.07.2019 by Regisseur

Dartmouth News reports that the college has dedicated Baker’s main interior hall “in honor of Richard Reiss Jr. ’66, who made a $10 million gift to pursue innovative means to explore, analyze, and create knowledge.” Good news, and the lettering (“REISS HALL”) below the lunette at the end of the old Catalogue Room looks great. This was going to be a comment about the confusion of “hall” (meaning “building”) for “hall” (meaning “room” or “corridor”) but it looks like the WPA Guide to New Hampshire (1938) calls the Catalog Room “the Delivery Hall,” so it might be that there is no harm done.
The college is demolishing the erratic old timber stair that runs from the boathouses up the hill to the River Cluster:In its place will be a metal slat stair that is raised off the ground (Planning Board minutes 2 April 2019 pdf). This project seems long overdue, but as usual one is compelled to praise the old stair, which was dark, irregular, organic, and integrated into the terrain, with an aesthetic more Moosilauke than Main Street. It provided a fitting transition between the slick campus buildings and the dangerous Connecticut River.
The college intends to build the Irving Institute “on top of an existing structure and renovate portions of that building” (Planning Board minutes 7 May 2019 pdf). That’s interesting. The old Cook Auditorium in Murdough will still exist, and the plaza on top of it (the characteristic brick-surface landscaping of Campbell, Aldrich & Nulty) will support the floor of the Irving atrium.
The Eleazar Wheelock Society has applied “to remove additions, renovate main block, and construct new ell, with associated site improvements” at the Wheelock Mansion House (Planning Board minutes 7 May 2019 pdf).
Creating a Port of Hanover as an entrepôt for produce coming downriver from the Organic Farm is unrealistic, but a College Barge would make a plausible addition to the waterfront. Not necessarily the Oxford type of barge (see St. John’s Barge), though that would be great for viewing boat races, but more akin to a broad houseboat, meant to provide temporary dormitory space when it is needed. In the Bronx, there is a permanent prison on a barge:
Abbott-Downing’s Concord Coaches at Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter.
This is another post on Campus Galli, the project to build a monastery following the (idealized and possibly just metaphorical) Plan of St. Gall, a centuries-long undertaking. Hyper-long term projects are appealing in this modern age; see also Agnes Denes’ Tree Mountain in Finland, intended to be maintained for 400 years.
A fascinating history of the ska-man emoji.

College floats three sites for the new heating plant

Posted on 30.06.2019 by Regisseur

First, the most important news: The college “will be decommissioning the current power plant, removing the stack and repurposing the building” (Planning Board Meeting Minutes 5 February 2019 pdf). That is reassuring. Naturally one would love to see the landmark 1958 stack retained as well and repurposed as a memorial column or a pedestal for public art, but we will take what we can get.

At a public meeting last month, the college revealed the three places that are in the running to become the site of the replacement heating plant (Valley News 22 May, Dartmouth News, The Dartmouth). The sites are:

1. The hill behind the Dewey parking lot, east of Rope Ferry Road and Occom Pond. This would not be the first power plant in the neighborhood, of course: the MHMH plant had a tall smokestack and stood in the parking lot behind 5 Rope Ferry Road (roughly behind the red BMW in this photo from Google Street View):

2. A site along Lyme Road by the Hanover Country Club’s maintenance facility garage at the south end of the golf course. This is the best we can do on Street View:

3. The third location is the former home of Trumbull-Nelson Construction Co., next to the Hanover Public Works Department, on Route 120.

The third option is the most distant and seems to be the only one that would not require trucks full of wood chips to drive through the center of town several times a day. That site would require a lengthy insulated underground pipeline to link up with the existing steam tunnel and pipe network, however. The pipeline can be no more than two miles long if it is to be efficient (Planning Board pdf). According to the map above, the route to the T-N site is about 1.6 miles, following roadways.

Because of its distance from campus and the possibility that it would keep some trucks out of town, the favorite site among the public seems to be the T-N site (Valley News 23 May).

Remember that time they built the engineering building in the wrong place?

Posted on 28.06.2019 by Regisseur

The Valley News reports that the deep excavation for the new Thayer/Computer Science building has been made in the wrong place: it is ten feet to the south of where it should be. The hole for the parking deck that will underpin the building was dug to the correct dimensions but in the wrong location.

Ignore for the moment the implications for an engineering school of this magnificent error (as well as the possibility that the excavation is in the right place but that the Town-approved documents were never updated after some design change). The article presents two options: conduct new excavations to put the building in the right place, or accept the current site and rehash the Town of Hanover approval process. The second option might be less expensive. Once it is re-approved, the planned bridge to MacLean can simply be extended by ten feet.

New building projects and other topics

Posted on 18.05.2019 by Regisseur

The Valley News has an article on the 50th anniversary of the Parkhurst takeover.
The DOC House at the head of Occom Pond is going to be renovated when there are enough donations.
The Library is working with Russell Scott Steedle & Capone Architects, Inc., to design a new off-site storage facility:

Dartmouth plans to build a 20,000 sq ft stand-alone, purpose-built storage facility to house the library’s low-use print collections and College records. This facility, to be located on Dartmouth’s 56 Etna Road property in Lebanon, will replace the existing Library offsite storage facility[,] which is full.
An article in The Dartmouth details progress on the Indoor Practice Facility (this is the controversial project in the Sunken Garden) and Campus Services has information on the progress of the Boathouse addition.
The year the bookstore died: Earlier this year, both the Dartmouth Bookstore (ca. 1872) and Wheelock Books (1993) closed up.
Now that the Dartmouth Bookstore is gone, the Gitsis Building is being heavily renovated, the Dartmouth reports:

The building’s owner, Jay Campion, said that the renovations are already well underway and should be complete by July, which will allow the three tenants to start setting up their shops. According to Campion, the renovation process has involved a complete makeover.

“We’ll be rebuilding the entire storefront and have basically gutted the building,” Campion said. “We’re re-insulating and replacing the heating and air conditioning systems for this and dividing the space for the three separate tenants on the first floor.”
This public domain collection of images from the National Archives has an interesting group of photos of campus during WWI. Most of them show the trenches that were dug behind the gym, presumably where Leverone stands today. This photo shows a group of cars and trucks parked inside the southeast (or possibly northwest) corner of the gymnasium itself.
Another new project: Renovations of the bluestone plaza in front of the Hopkins Center. The paving stones will be replaced with concrete pavers.
Wilson Architects have posted an updated flythrough of the Thayer/CS Building. Now it is clear that the retaining wall to the west is actually the entrance to the garage; in this rendering, it is just vegetated rather than topped by a parapet and walkway.
Not sure whether the new Planning, Design and Construction website has been mentioned here.
In this Street View the Google employee with his camera backpack is reflected in the windows of Berry Library — as he walks through campus tour group.
This post at Granite Geek solves the mystery of whether the NHDHR database called EMMIT is a reference to the derogatory student term “Emmit,” meaning a local person (or really, a New Hampshireman, not so much a townie). The answer is no.
Lawrence Biemiller has a piece in the Chronicle of Higher Ed called “Make Way for Trenches! A College Plans to Scrap Its Entire Heating System.” It has good information on the upcoming heat plant and steam-to-water transition projects.
When the new biomass plant is completed, the college will decommission the old heating plant behind New Hampshire Hall. Then it will have an empty building, historic and full of character and eminently reusable, right in the middle of the Arts District. The current feeling seems to be that the building will be demolished, along with its landmark smokestack. Here’s hoping that either or both can be saved, and if they are to be destroyed, at least they can be thoroughly documented first. The University of Virginia is doing the right thing by scanning University Hall, a 1965 domed concrete basketball arena.
The Anthropology Department is leading n archeological aexcavation of an 18th-century house site on campus. That’s fantastic. It’s a pity that no one was doing this in the 1930s (or even the late 1980s, before the construction of the steam tunnel disturbed the east side of the Green).
Unrelated: A week and a half ago, Union Pacific 4014, a 1940s steam locomotive with a 4-8-8-4 wheel arrangement, was brought back to life. Having seen a couple of Big Boys in impossibly derelict condition in Colorado and Wyoming in my youth, I never thought one of these locomotives would run again. Here’s a film of the colossus, double-headed with UP 844 (a 4-8-4): Film by Jaw Tooth. Here’s another clip by airrailimages. Astonishing.

Master planning picks up steam

Posted on 17.05.2019 by Regisseur

The master planning site is now seeking comments.

An article in The Dartmouth on the first master planning town hall meeting has this to say:

The Golf Course: “The Hanover Country Club could also be repurposed in the plan, as it is ‘losing a significant amount of money,’ Moore said. He added that the Hanover Country Club will continue to operate as a golf course through 2020. However, its fate after 2020 will be determined by the master plan. Other land that could be repurposed includes Lewiston Lot, an area on the Vermont side of Ledyard Bridge that currently operates as a parking lot.”
Rivercrest: “Graduate student housing was also mentioned several times during the town hall. The Rivercrest property, located north of the Hanover Country Club, is one of the areas being considered for future graduate student housing, Moore said.”

An article on the master plan in the Valley News has lots of interesting tidbits:

The history of master planning: “The development of a new master plan was started in 2012 but was never completed nor was a draft made available to the public following the departure of then-Dartmouth president Jim Yong Kim.”
The possible (palatial?) Country Club: “One possibility for the future of the Hanover Country Club is the addition of a new clubhouse on Lyme Road. Keniston confirmed that a group of Tuck students are currently evaluating the financial viability of such a venue.”
Locations for third-party grad student housing: “According to Keniston, $500,000 has been approved for a private developer to build 250 beds either at 401 Mount Support Road or Sachem Village, which already houses graduate students.” See also the later Valley News story on the invitation for proposals.
The new heat plant: “As for the future location of a proposed Dartmouth biomass plant, Keniston said the technical analysis is almost complete to announce two to four potential sites. A community forum will be held mid-May to solicit feedback on the locations from local residents.”

Here’s a scoop from a recent piece by D. Maurice Kreis¹D. Maurice Kreis, “On the Dartmouth Green, Art and Architecture Make their Stand,” InDepthNH.org (9 February 2019). about the new Hood:

Showing off the expansion and renovation designed by the world-renowned New York architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, Stomberg casually mentioned that the Hood opted to stick with its existing location at the center of campus rather than move to a more distant spot that had been offered, which he characterized as being near the Connecticut River.

Instead, Stomberg said, that’s where Dartmouth will put the new central heating plant it recently announced plans to construct so as to stop burning oil and start burning sustainably harvested wood.

That’s interesting. A site by the River? Could it be Rivercrest? Now that we know that grad student housing will be built in Lebanon, could Rivercrest be on the list of sites for the heating plant? Rivercrest is the next development along the River after CRREL:

—————————–

 [+]

References
↑1	D. Maurice Kreis, “On the Dartmouth Green, Art and Architecture Make their Stand,” InDepthNH.org (9 February 2019).

Various construction topics

Posted on 23.03.2019 by Regisseur

An Architectural Digest story on the Hood by Elizabeth Fazzare again refers to a gray brick supposedly used in the original building, this time stating that it was used in the iconic trabeated gateway. The gateway was made of concrete, however; Moore originally intended it to be of granite.
The Indoor Practice Facility weekly update includes an aerial image showing the building’s footprint.
Van Zelm Engineers, a firm that worked on the 1978 Life Sciences Center and has built some very interesting heating plants over the years, are working on the Irving Institute. Their project page shows a basic footprint for the Institute for the first time: it really is a screen building. The college project page now includes renderings of the side facades and a new interior view.
A flythrough video of the Thayer/CS building by Wilson Architects suggests that the complex will have quite a retaining wall on the west side; one hopes it’s made into “engineering” or at least faced in granite.
The Thayer School Parking Garage project page has some cute computer images of various stages of future excavation. Turner Construction has a camera on MacLean showing the construction site.
Campus Services reports on a project to remove diseased trees from Pine Park.
High-Profile and North Branch Construction have information on the renovation of Blunt into an academic building.
The Dana renovation remains an interesting project. There is a video flythrough at the Leers Weinzapfel Associates site, and it shows a little pedestrian bridge on the west side of the building. A glimpse of the building’s lobby shows the Guarini shield on an office door and a “graduate lounge” occupying a part of the building, possibly a holdover from the similarly-named space called for in the giant unbuilt dining commons that MRY and Bruner/Cott proposed for a site a few yards to the southwest. The glassy Dana frontispiece will be topped with a patio; the penthouse has a flat canopy roof that is covered in solar panels and almost gives the building the air of a pagoda.
Some Tuck Drive details from the July 3 minutes of the Planning Board (pdf):

The road is about half a mile long. He stated they will be working within the existing asphalt and drainage swales in order to maintain the existing stone walls. Lighting along the road will be minimal. Fixtures will be spaced 80-120 feet apart. Better access to the loading dock at Murdough will be provided. From Wheelock Street, Old Tuck Drive will be a two way street and give access to the Ledyard Parking Lot. After the turn off to the parking lot, the drive becomes a one way access. There is a pedestrian crossing point marked by a raised speed table. Guardrails will be installed along Old Tuck Drive. There is a bike lane separated from vehicle traffic by a double yellow line. Close to Tuck Drive there will be sidewalks on both sides of the drive.

[…]

Mr. Scherding stated the campus was open with busy streets and students were used to crossing streets and sharing roads. He stated the Director of Public Works suggested narrowing the road at pedestrian crossings to make it safer. Mr. Scherding said they talked about having a physical barrier between the vehicles and the bike lanes but currently it is not on the plans. ESMAY asked what the guardrail would look like. Mr. Scherding stated it would look like the existing granite bollards.
A report of the September trustees’ meeting describes a renovation project in which “the College intends to improve learning spaces throughout Dartmouth Hall to ensure that the building can meet the needs of faculty and students in the 21st century. As part of the planned construction, the College will restore some of the structure’s historic elements, overhaul the building’s systems, and upgrade its energy efficiency.”
Revision Energy has a page on its solar installations at the college. Some of the dormitory installations really do transform the appearance of the buildings.
Bruner/Cott has a page on its renovation of Baker Tower. The interior graffiti appear to have been removed.
The automated parking system of the UK Architects addition to the rear of the Bridgman Building is drawing some attention (ACPark.com, Parking-Net.com).
There is more news on the off-campus (or edge-of-campus?) heating plant project (Dartmouth News, The Dartmouth). Although a nice spot for it would be the Dewey Field parking lot (orange), my money’s on a few Lyme Road sites, shown in red:

Speculative map of potential heating plant sites

Irving revealed

Posted on 06.10.2018 by Regisseur

The college has released several images of the planned building of the Irving Institute at the west end of Tuck Mall.

Goody Clancy, the architecture firm that designed the building, appears to be well regarded by Tuck. Goody Clancy designed Whittemore (1999-2000) and the LLC (2007-2008), a set of connected buildings behind the Murdough Center.

The Institute is straightforward. It is not a “look at me” building, but it is not a shrinking violet either. It needs to be straightforward to live up to the outsized role it has been given in campus-making. A building has been needed here for 50 years, and it almost seems a matter of happenstance that an energy institute is the occupant of this one.

The long, shallow brick range with its steeply-pitched gable makes one think of Centerbrook Architects, maybe that firm’s UConn Chemistry Building.

The flat-roofed glass frontispiece is a bit like the Rauner jewel box. The frontispiece is itself fronted by a minimalist and possibly “High Tech”-style quadristyle temple front, if you could call it that. Again there is no gable, just a flat roof that protrudes to the sides as a set of “wings”; a bit Deco, a bit nautical, a bit like James Stirling’s No. 1 Poultry in London of 1997 (Wikipedia).

The use of the white-painted steel design language, in this building, seems to indicate connections and bridges, and it references nicely the Koetter Kim bridge built in 2006 to connect Murdough and Thayer:

The most remarkable of the new images is the interior view. That cantilevered, glassed-in second-floor corridor visible on the left is the existing black jetty of Murdough:

Dartmo.

The Buildings of Dartmouth College

Category Archives: master planning